Chicka Chicka Boom Boom: Learning letters and

sounds at a zoom!
This lesson introduces, reviews, and reinforces letter recognition and letter sounds using the book Chicka

Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault. Kindergarten children will enjoy this activity! It is

appropriate for all academic levels.

A lesson plan for grade K English Language Arts

BY SHANNA BUCKNER

Learn more

R E L AT E D PA G E S

Gorgeous glittery glasses: The students will use lower case g to create glasses for letter g representation.

Alphabet animals: Students will use their knowledge of the alphabet and letter sounds to create an alphabet

PowerPoint presentation. Each slide will contain a letter of the alphabet, a sentence and the sound that corresponds to that

letter.

Newspaper words: Students will use newspapers to find the letters for certain words, such as spelling words, or

words with certain beginnings or endings, and then create those particular words by cutting and pasting.

R E L AT E D T O P I C S

Learn more about alphabet, crafts, hands-on, language arts, and read-alouds.

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

recognize letters and their sounds.

learn to combine letters to create their name and begin to recognize it.

demonstrate fine motor skills through cutting and pasting.

become familiar with parts of books and their functions.

Teacher planning
T I M E R E Q U I R E D F O R L E SS O N

2.5 hours

M AT E R I A L S / R E S O U R C E S

Teacher will need:

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault
 26 57 alphabet index cards with upper case letter written on front and lower case letter on back

(you will probably want to laminate these)

pink, green and brown construction paper

glue

scissors

old magazines

pencils

T E C H N O LO GY R E S O U R C E S

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom CD-ROM is a great source for reinforcing this lesson! However, it is not required.

This CD offers review of letter recognition and letter sounds. I set it up as a rotation during Centers over a

weeks time so every child has a turn.

Pre-activities

There is a simple warm up activity to get the students thinking about letters and their sounds.

Begin by having the children sit in a large circle on the floor. (Children could be seated at tables.)

The teacher should lead the children in singing their ABCs.

Next, the teacher will pass out one alphabet card to each child. Ask the children to look at both sides

of their card and think about what letter it is and what sound it makes. The teacher will line up the extra

alphabet cards on the floor in alphabetical order leaving space between missing cards (the ones the children

have).

Begin with the letter A and have the student with that card come to the lined up cards on the floor.

They should hold it up so all the children can see it. Then the teacher should ask What letter is this? The

children will respond A (hopefully, if not tell them what letter it is). Then the teacher will ask the group

What sound does this letter make? They should respond with the letter sound.

After you have completed all the letters A-Z you are ready to begin the lesson.
 Activities
PA RT 1

1. The teacher will read aloud Chicka Chicka Boom Boom as the students are seated on the floor or

wherever your whole group space is located in your room.

2. Before reading make sure you review the parts of the book. For example point to the cover and ask

the children What is this? Also make sure you tell them who the author and illustrator is. You should review

that the author writes the words and the illustrator draws or paints the pictures.

PA RT 2

1. Groups of 4-5 students are seated around table with teacher. The teacher gives each student one

piece of pink paper and a pencil. Help them write their name on this paper. (In kindergarten I encourage

students to write their name on their paper before we begin to work.)

2. The teacher will give each student brown and green construction paper, scissors, and glue. The

teacher will instruct the students to cut out a tree trunk from the brown paper and palm leaves from the

green. You can show them the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom book as an example.

3. After they finish cutting out these things they need to glue them to the pink construction paper.

They have a coconut tree! Next they will cut out letters from magazines to spell their name. As they find

each letter they will glue it on their paper so the letters are going up the tree like in the book.

4. As the students work the teacher will converse with each student about the letters and sounds that

are in their name. Letter recognition and sounds will be reinforced as the teacher converses with the

students and the students converse with each other.

Assessment
I N D I V I D UA L S T U D E N T A SS E SS M E N T

The teacher will sit down one on one with each student to complete this assessment. The teacher will show

alphabet cards to the student and check off which ones he/she knows on the assessment. Next, the teacher

will say a letter to the child. The child must tell the sound the letter makes or give a word that begins with

that letter.
G R O U P A SS E SS M E N T

After the class has completed their papers, the teacher will assemble the group back in the group area. As

the class looks at the papers, the teacher will ask different students whose name is on the coconut tree. This

gives the teacher an idea of where each student is with learning their classmates names. It demonstrates

how well they can recognize familiar words from sight.

Supplemental information

Here is another activity that relates to this book, but uses mathematics as its focus:

Lay the alphabet cards from above on the floor around the room. Instruct the students to find the letter

that begins their name. Then each group should sit together near their letter. On the chalk or dry erase board

the teacher will write the letters A-Z in graph form leaving space under each one for the students name. With

the students help the teacher will write each name under the appropriate letter. (If the children can write

their name and reach the board allow them to write their name under the correct letter.) After all the names

from the class are on the graph, discuss the graph with the group. Ask questions like How many names

begins with A? or How many P names and R names are there?.